1095 Days
by Handful of Silence
Summary: Sherlock Holmes vanishes at Reichenbach Falls, presumed dead. John spends the next three years trying to move on. J/S
1. Prologue

_AN/ I realise that a Hiatus fic isn't the most original of premises, but hey, I wanted to add my own slant on it. Abandon hope all ye who enter, for here be angst =] Originally penned as a oneshot, this thing grew in the telling into something a bit too long and cumbersome, so has been split into chapters. _

_Summary: Sherlock Holmes vanishes at Reichenbach Falls, presumed dead. John spends the next three years trying to move on. J/S_

* * *

><p><strong>1095 Days<strong>

The thrown up spray from the Falls splatters along the exposed skin of his hands peeking out from upturned jacket cuffs, dots darker patches of damp along the lower leg of his trousers. His limbs are frozen, a culmination of icy water stiffening the material of his clothing, and a more internal iciness, dragging sharp scratching nails down his spine, a painful parody of something affectionate. The sun is at its afternoon zenith, high above and aloof, providing no warmth despite the summer weather, and the cool bland sky is devoid of clouds all the way to the horizon.

To John, it feels like it should be pitch black midnight, witching hour, the end of the day, end of everything; for no birds chirp and moan out their dreary tunes, there is no rustle of leaves, no voices – not even the one John wants to hear – nothing at all, a void where there is no sound except for the incessant roaring of the waterfall.

He leans out over the precipice as far as he can, and he isn't quite sure what exactly he is hoping to catch sight of amongst the waves crushing against harsh jutting rocks and the foaming white where the ridges of water snap and break. He only knows that he searches desperately for it – a flash of black coat, blue cotton scarf, just something – with frantic pacing eyes, and what he is hoping to see does not do him the honour of appearing.

"Sherlock!" he bellows, calling to the man – surely he is hiding, surely Sherlock wouldn't leave him, not in this way, not with no goodbye – and as time stretches brutally, boisterous and flaunting itself, knowing that the longer this goes on, the less chance there is of Sherlock turning up, alive or not at all, John continues to shout the man's name out, like the lamenting cry of a lone bird, his voice cracking, rubbing his throat raw.

John stays there for a long time. Kneeling over the side, even venturing to try and clamber down the protrusive slope down, like teeth, like the rocks are molars and incisors, biting into his hands. He wants to be able to climb down, because it's something to do, because it distracts his mind, the jangling, hollering whispers that say _you go down there and you'll only find bodies, _and John doesn't credit the thought, even though he knows it's right this time. He wonders whether his own body is down there too, whether he's tumbled down already, and that this is merely his presence prolonging his consciousness. He imagines his limbs shattered and askew, twisted at right angles, a mouth filled with blood that in death warps into a smile, his glass, fragile heart in pieces so small that glue would be superfluous.

He wonders if that's what Sherlock looks like down there, and bile rises in his throat and coaxes another desperate shout out of him.

The projection of the rock is too far out for him to get a foothold on the indents of stone beneath it, and with a sickening lurch he nearly loses his own grip on the slick surface, almost descends down, grasping helplessly at nothing as he follows down his partner and their arch-nemesis. He thinks their, because Moriarty became the goal they both strove to obtain, not just Sherlock; and although the detective chased shadows from Budapest to Sierra Leone because this was a game, _the_ game, John didn't trust Sherlock to protect his own well-being over the promise of winning, so chased after him with a gun tucked into the back of his jeans with a bullet he had every intention of driving into Moriarty's brain. He had killed for Sherlock once before, would do so again.

Although when the chance finally came, John got there too late and both men were already gone.

Finally, reality seeps in, an evanescent fog, the dreamlike trance that John can wrap himself in pulling away, fading and leaving him alone. There is something in his chest, but he doesn't know what it means, what purpose it serves anymore. A deluge of rain is starting up that is no different from the spray, and it's anarchic and soon soaks everything; the sparse grass turned limp, the rocks no longer even majestic in their proud indifference.

John drags himself away from the scene. Slowly, fumbling steps taken with a different version of his own body, with the weight of every second behind him, he makes his way back down the trail.

"Sherlock." he murmurs, and he ruins the fallacy he had constructed by saying out loud. God, this was real, wasn't it? Yet even then, John's steps don't falter, his hand is ominously steady. He does not hear his own words over the cursing roar of the water, and he thinks there should be some logic to this, that this should follow a pattern pre-set and simple to follow. He should break down, cry, scream, curse God or Moriarty or even Sherlock – especially Sherlock – for being so fucking stupid, wants to swallow back down his heart because it's dying in his throat along with any words he has claim to. But he doesn't do any of those things.

He stops dead, just for a second. He doesn't look back, for there is nothing to see but the water and the rocks, but he closes his eyes. No tears fall, but he listens to the noise of the waterfall again. It is not beautiful, but nothing is anymore, and he imagines in that brief moment a future he could have had, tortures himself with it, while something unsettling starts at the centre of him and pervades out. Invasion, but then John doesn't fight it. His entire body is freezing, turning to stone, and he doesn't do anything but wait for the process to finish, breathing softly like he's almost apologising for doing so.

He should feel something. Something inside of him, like burning, a shrieking charring as the flesh inside him coils and shrivels away to a husk. There is merely an apathy instead, an absent sensation, like the empty barrel of a gun, an empty promise on his ring finger that fulfilled itself well – _Till death do us part, _wasn't it? It's funny now, but at the same time it's not, it's definitely not – and instead of a flesh and blood man, John is formed of rock, moulded from the clay of the earth, and inside him a waterfall churns out a eulogy.

He limps down the path he came up. He has no cane to support him, so stumbles often, and the roar of water in his head finds all the right places to tear him apart.


	2. Year One

**Year 1**

* * *

><p><em>Day 1<br>_He finds the note in his coat pocket when he goes to check for his mobile, crushing it with his fingertips before his brain realises what the crinkling noise belongs to. It is the edge of a lined page stolen from one of John's notebooks, marked with a delicate spidery handwriting in black biro, elongated, arching self-assured flicks to the tails of 'g' and 'f'. Contrasting from the usual penmanship however, the individual letters huddle together, their curves retaining more of a spiked structure, the sides of each grapheme squashing up close to another as though to gather some strength from the nearness, and regardless of the rushed speed in which this had been written, there is a concern in the words that shows that the writer had considered carefully what he was going to write down before rendering it into a scrawl scribbled on a scrap piece of paper.

_**John, **_

_**Believe me when I say that if there had been any way other than this, I would have taken it without thought. I know you might be angry at me, and you are right to be. I apologise however, for deceiving you, for now you might have realised that the call that brought you away from the mountain was one of my devising. Or rather, I knew that Moriarty would do something to separate you from me, for he wishes our final meeting to have no audience but his own. I doubt I will survive this, yet I have lived a good and full life, and the defeat of such a dangerous man I see to be the culmination of many years work, and the fitting conclusion of my own career. **_

_**To you, John, all I feel for you has already been spoken aloud between us. I would have given up all I valued in a heartbeat should you have wanted it, and my only regret is that I am not able to say goodbye to you properly. And although this is necessary, I am well-aware of the pain it will cause. You deserve better than this letter, and I am sorry. There is little I can do to make this farewell easier, so let me just say that you were the greatest case that I never solved, and that I leave you having loved and been loved by the most remarkable man it was ever my fortune to meet that day in Barts.**_

_**Yours faithfully,**_

_**Sherlock **_

John slumps down on the bed next to his packed suitcase, fist clasping around the paper, the words bleeding off it, dark ink transferring through his pores, his cells, widening and stretching the hollow gaps inside him. He thinks there might be the beginning of tears behind his eyes, so he composes himself a corner of space in his chest to shove all the things he can't bring himself to think on, not yet, what he can't deal with right now. On the other side of a grimy window in a country he does not know, a landscape that is alien, the clouds overhead are devastated, and John's heartbeat sounds thundering, all-compassing in his head.

For a moment, he is thinking of a grassy precipice crowned in light, tries to imagine the edges of horizon in his memory, whether there is something after Sherlock, after the frothing water and the barren sky that confronts it, or whether everything stops there.

He is thinking whether he'll ever figure out the answer to that.

There is a knock on his door, a timid _taptaptap_, the signal that his taxi has arrived to take him to Bern airport; to be met with the bustle of travellers, the swamp of people all with their own path-lines. The plane that will take him home. Somehow, that prospect doesn't sound as appealing as it did before. In his head, he's not even sure Baker Street is still standing; as though it was a physical manifestation conjured up with shear will out of Sherlock's head. And now with him gone, John feels he has little entitlement to it.

"Are you ok, sir?" An accented voice enquires of him, and John stands up, forcing the weight to rest on his good leg, plastering a smile over the dark patches, calling out;

"Yeah, I'm fine"

He's not. He's really not.

* * *

><p><em>Day 3<br>_He takes the plane on a Monday when the sky is twisted with storm clouds and tells himself he's not running away, not really. He returns unaccompanied, his ticket folded into his palm, a reedy smile of thanks to the hostess who gestures him off the plane that fools no-one. It is convenient and a tangible relief like the nick of a knife blade that Anthea is already waiting in the arrival's lounge, her sharp eyes that don't hold their gaze, the uncomfortable manner in which they flick away quickly. Mycroft must have known via certain channels that John would be coming home without his brother. The doctor couldn't bring himself to call him. The phone rested in the palm of his hands, innocuous enough, with unsteady fingers he'd managed to key in the correct number. But like the coward he was, he bottled it at the last second.

Anthea asks him where he wants to go, tone soft, limp sympathetic words with all the fire in them drenched out, and he replies in a voice oddly calm, untouched by chaos, running a hand through his hair and smoothing out the spots of rain like shards of glass that he finds there. It is raining in London too. John wonders whether the weather followed him here, or whether it's always been raining and he's just never noticed.

"Home" he says, and sits in silence for the rest of the journey; gazing out of rain scarred windows, seeing nothing, remembering everything. Kisses like biting, long sensuous things that disregarded the whims of time, slender and elegant, taut as cord and sharp as teeth and the hisses the streamlined man made of angles and eyes that rarely blink made though lips pressed into a line when John moved like _that, _put his hands _there. _The softer things, punching him like a mortar shell onto sacred ground, will come later. It hurts to linger on what he can no longer have, but it's an improvement on the numbness that holds council over his grief.

John avoids Mrs Hudson when he gets back – to Baker Street, he can't quite title it 'home' anymore – and retreats upstairs, one step, two, up to seventeen. He sits himself down on the sofa, bag abandoned at the door, rooms musty from the absence of the occupants for so more weeks. Brushing his fingers against his cheek – like it's smarting, like someone has slapped him hard with intent to wound, and when blood comes back from a split lip, he'll stare while his heart shutters closed – he stares at the wetness he finds (he'll tell himself it's the rain) like he's not sure what it's there for.

* * *

><p><em>Day 29<br>_He's awake, his heart hammering in his chest, an organ turned world-weary sparked with a sudden hope, his mind half still trapped in dream while his hands are already working in real-time, grabbing his phone, keying in the number; this whole moment coming down to the one ideal he wants above all others, and the one person who can cement its truth in his head.

He's wild-haired and wild-eyed, and it's three in the morning, but if the person on the other end doesn't pick up, he's so fired that he would shrug some clothes on, buttons popped into the wrong holes, socks inside out and shoelaces dangling untied and walk to where he lives; such is his fervent belief in what he needs to share, such is his need for verification.

He hugs his duvet to him like another body, the two of them chest to chest, the motions of comfort all one-sided.

The phone rings, then – click – a connection hangs in the air, open-ended silence before a voice finally conjures up words for the blankness.

"John?" The man on the other end knows who is calling, and his voice is not as sleep-riddled as the doctor had expected, and for a second John half imagines that he was almost expecting this call before he disregards the absurdity of it.

"He's not dead" John blurts out, his words gone wrong in the saying off them, off in the middle, because now they sound stupid even if they're right, and he stumbles in his haste to back up his exclamation with proof, and it sounds every bit like this is just the latter end of the loop that's been running round and round, zigzagging through his mind. "He can't be. Look, there was no body right? They would have found a body, it would have been swept out along the river. Sherlock probably imagines there's still elements of Moriarty's groups out there, and if he wants to take them out his being dead would be a foolproof ruse. I mean – " He's almost babbling in the frenzy of sound, the culmination of thought processes all delivered together " – they'd never expect a dead man to go after them, so they'd lax their security, make it easier for – "

"John – "

"No, listen. If he was going to pretend to be dead, he'd need you. He'd tell you, because you've got connections, you'd be able to make it look real. I just want you to tell me Mycroft, just one word, because I'll wait, I'll wait as long as it takes for him to come back, because he's alive, I know he is, he can't be dead – "

"John" Mycroft's tone is gentle, intentionally firm, the saying of his name like it's something final, but interlocked with something else, something grieving and fathomless and hating itself "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but Sherlock's gone"

"But he can't be."

John sounds pathetic, sitting on the side of his bed, a crooked angle of powdery light from the street outside making it's way into his bedroom (their bedroom), his hands shaking, something crowding at the bottom of his eyes that he pushes away, and understanding and acceptance are so far out of reach like a door that is always locked, painted the colour of slate with the knob broken so it rattles and falls out when someone turns to try and get through.

"I'm sorry John" Mycroft speaks again, and he sounds it, honestly sounds like he's despicably torn between wanting to tell the truth and wanting to lie, and whichever one is easier today, and when morning comes maybe he'll want to say something different. But in the dark John can't hide because he's already hidden, and so Mycroft delivers the words he has to say for reasons that wont be clear until later, when John has accepted certain truths. A pause, like a stretch of sky where there are no stars, then; "Do you want me to come over?"

It's such a gesture of kindness, of solidarity between two men who have lost someone they loved in their own ways, that John suddenly feels small, filled with an essence of shame that is not distilled by tiredness or grief.

"No" he stutters "No, I – I'm sorry I disturbed you Mycroft, I mean, it was a stupid idea, completely stupid... I – I'm sorry" He's not quite sure what he's apologising for this time, but he clicks the phone off, working on stitching up open-wounds in his chest that screech and hurt in the air and the dark, fighting to level out his breathing. He tells himself it's not crying if no-one else is a witness to the smothered hitching of his chest and the hot lines that crawl down his cheeks.

* * *

><p><em>Day 61<br>_Daylight confronts his eyes, something basic that separates the days out into the mess of stuck together instances they've become, and John squints, eyes throbbing, light crushing, haemorrhaging white against the pink fleshy lids that he snaps shut against the glare. He groans, wants the gloom of twilight back, wants tender dusk and not the day that starts without his say-so, turning onto his side and pushing back into the comfortable heaviness of a gangly arm draped over him to wrap round his waist.

"Sherlock, what did I say about shutting the curtains?" he mutters, voice throaty with sleep, the detective not stirring. He raises his head, turning his neck to glance at the man next to him... and then the illusion vanishes, reality sweeping in like a backslash of cold air, and the light is cruel and harsh as it catches his eyes, pounding through glass, streaming through without shattering it but still like a bullet when it hits him. And the weight next to him is merely his own duvet, suffocating him, smothering him not in a soft hold but in a tight grip and he kicks at it violently, pushing it off and away, throwing off the weight even if he's left with the sensation of it still on his fingertips.

The room is empty.

Of course it is.

* * *

><p><em>Day 113<br>_Wake. Shower. Tea, toast. Dress. Go to work. Come back. Tea; milk no sugar. Go through mail, bin junk, file bills and bank statements. Dinner. Plate for one. One knife, one fork. Wash up, put away. Sit in front of the TV, channel flick, watch other people's miseries. Set alarm. Redress in pyjamas. These rituals are mechanical, predictable as clockwork. Sleep. These are the things he knows, this is the default setting of life, this is the station he stopped off at, and no train is coming to help him move on.

Wake. Repeat.

* * *

><p><em>Day 189<br>_A meeting with a grief therapist is set up for him, most likely by Mycroft. He gets the appointment card, clear white card and a business-like font, shoved through his letter box. Nine o'clock on a Monday. He finds all his appointments have been shifted to later on that day, freeing up his morning.

He still does not attend.

* * *

><p>Day <em>203<br>__The image is ratty, scarred and crumpled at the edges, like a photograph thumbed and folded over too many times. Sherlock is in the centre of the image, staring right at him. He himself is on the other side of the Falls, and the sideways glance his partner shoots at him is regretful, frightfully so. He stands tall, straightening every inch of himself into a dark-haired idol, limbs highly strung, his coat whipping around his ankles, dampened by the spray. _

_And then he inexplicably leans backwards, his arms reaching out as though featherless wings, and the falling motion is sickening, like Icarus as his hands suddenly scrabble at a purchase that is not there, and his eyes don't leave John as he drops, plummeting with an expression of such fear, and John's vocal cords are released from their frozen bondage, and he screams a wordless sound that should be a name, only it can't be heard over the rushing, grinding, whooshing of the waterfall that swallows up Sherlock whole..._

John snaps his eyes open, seeing the morning before him, the shallow reassurance of his own room, his own empty room, his nightclothes drenched in sweat, the bed covers thrown off to the floor, letting the cold air creep up his skin. He doesn't have to tell himself that it was a nightmare, because it's the same one every night.

With a sigh, the sound of screaming and the rush of water in his head, he sits up with a resigned sigh, hands balancing on his knees before he stands up and makes his way slowly, not bothering with his cane because it's a symbol of everything he's come to despise; dependence, a constant reminder of what vital thing he's lacking, into the kitchenette to put the kettle on. He's not going to get any more sleep tonight.

* * *

><p><em>Day 261<br>_Christmas is bad. He tries not to think about it.

* * *

><p><em>Day 338<br>_Lestrade stalks into the hospital room, badge still clutched in his hand that he's probably used to get past nurses asking for his clearance, his eyes flicking until they catch sight of the man he's looking for. John glances up, shifting on the table he's got his legs dangling over while a nurse digs stitches in through the deep cut above his eyebrow.

"It's not as bad as it looks" He offers as a greeting to the DI, meaning the cut, which being a head would has bled down the side of his face in a sluggish drip, encrusting in a reddish stain that makes this whole scenario seem more macabre. He winces as the nurse applies antiseptic to the area. There are some superficial bruises to his face, mottled shapeless blotches that trace his jaw and a graze where a knife glanced off his cheek and split the skin.

"They called me at the office," Lestrade responds brusquely, torn between two warring emotions of worry and anger, arms crossed to shield some of his concern. He sighs, loosens the stripy tie he's wearing today, obviously just rushed over from the Yard, and his forehead creases at the intersection between his eyebrows, drags them down into a frown. "Said you'd been involved in a mugging"

"S'alright, I'm fine"

"_Fine_? John, have you seen yourself?"

"I told you, it's not as bad..."

"Why didn't you just give him your bloody wallet?"

"Jeez, I got you the guy, didn't I? That's got to count for something"

Lestrade, with his hands planted firmly on his hips, is giving him an approximation of the exact look he used to give Sherlock when he was being particularly obtuse. "It was bloody reckless, that's what it was! You put yourself in unnecessary danger, and don't you dare try and tell me it wasn't intentional."

John diverts his gaze to his feet, suddenly finding interest in the stitching down the side of his shoes, and there is shame in the way he doesn't meet Lestrade's eyes.

"I just needed to do something" he murmurs quietly, and they both pretend that it's still the mugging he's talking about


	3. Year Two

**Year 2**

* * *

><p><em>Day 370<br>_Mycroft arrives unannounced, the end of his umbrella clattering a staccato up the steps to the upper flat.

"John" he greets him, giving one of those knowing looks – the ones that so riled Sherlock when the British Government came visiting – fleeting, digging under John's skin, making the gooseflesh at the back of his neck prickle. Mycroft looks John over, and it may not be obvious, but John has been around the genius family to read the signs, and right now the man is taking apart every clue as to his well-being in a manner so like his younger brother it makes John stiffen, sets off some defensive default attitude.

John's hand, as is so frequent these days, is trembling with little control, and Mycroft has noticed, because he makes no move to shake John's hand as is his custom. Embarrassment – No, it occurs to the doctor that he is doing it more out of concern, not wanting to draw attention to it more for John's sake than his own, not wanting to distress him. John's not sure, rarely is these days, whether that touches or bothers him, because if there's one thing he doesn't want, has never wanted, not after Afghanistan and not after this latest war he's limped out of, it's another man's pity.

"How have you been John?" Mycroft enquires in his usual pointed way, shrewd eyes giving nothing away. It's John today, not the oft used Doctor Watson that he usually titles him with, so the upcoming conversation must be bad.

John shrugs, demeanour equally closed up. "As well as expected"

The stalemate lingers, contained, the teeth of both their gazes snagging up in each other, a corpse in the room that neither of them are choosing to mention. The silence is fragile, hollow boned, and like everything that is both eternal and momentary, breakable. Mycroft snaps it first.

"I could always help?" He offers, and John's lashes blink, shutter, a fence keeping everything in "After everything you've done for my brother, it wouldn't be right for me not to..."

"No thank you"

"You haven't even heard my offer yet." He smiles genially, twirling the handle of his umbrella; clockwise, anticlockwise, as though it is being buffeted from side to side by an invisible wind, the tip of it staunchly anchoring itself against the wooden floorboards.

John folds his arms. "To set me up to have a another little chat with one of your hired shrinks, I guess. I'm not interested"

"Now come on John" This argument is well choreographed, John steps to the left, Mycroft to the right, circling, neither giving any quarter. "Let's not be..."

"Mycroft" John cuts him off, standing in front of the fireplace with all of its adornments still present; the skull, the dark wood statue to the furthest right. His arms hang by his side, but he leans heavily on his cane, his position as immovable as his expression "No"

They stop circling, but the barriers are still raised, trapped in the middle of something. Mycroft pauses, then for a moment appears to be torn in a moment of self doubt, out of his comfort zone in the presence of a quiet grieving man who wants nothing from nobody, not help, not even pity. It is in these moments when he knows as little about the internal workings of people as his brother did. But he is wiser at times, sees more and understands others a little better with time and practice, and something sharp in his countenance softens, blunted for the moment.

"You need to look after yourself" He says, a certain fond involvement making itself known "Sherlock wouldn't want you to do this"

John's not sure what he means specifically by this. He's thinner, that's for sure, but that's because food is boring and he's never really that hungry; it could be the black bruises under his eyes but that how sleep comes harder; or it could be how retreating into himself is so much easier than dealing with the questioning world that asks so much of him, like spilling under the skin of water and drowning amongst bubbles of escaping air.

He expects the mention of his partner's name to hurt him, jab into his side, and twist, ram upwards to the hilt in a slash of dampened silver, but it doesn't. Instead he gives a brittle laugh, all thorns and broken glass, a feral grumble of abused vowels and constants.

"Sherlock's gone Mycroft" he replies and there is no response the elder Holmes can give to that.

* * *

><p><em>Day 495<br>_"_Hello, Mrs Harrison, how are you today?"  
><em>_"Well, doctor, it's my hip you see..."_

"_Hello Mr Samuels, how are you today?"  
><em>_"Not too well, I'm afraid doctor..."_

"_What have you come to see me about then, Miss Salunga?"_

All day it's a list of illnesses, ailments, some real and some exaggerated, his responses all scrubbed and polished, gleaming and polite like a new penny, washed clean by the rush of a waterfall – ...Can you look into this light, please Mr Harker... let me just write out a prescription for you to take to the main desk Miss Neumann... could you point to where it hurts Sam, that's a good lad... – and they're all so caught up in their own problems that they don't expect that a doctor can't even fix his own ailments.

_Hello, Doctor Watson, how are you today? Not great, Mrs Harrison, I still can't move on from the death of the man I loved, but never mind that, how's your hip doing? You aren't sleeping well, Mr Samuels. I can recommend some tablets for that, I've got the same problem, except it's more because I dream of waterfalls and a dark coat and scattered stars . Could you point to where it's hurting Sam, or maybe the numb spaces in your chest like grown over scar tissue where the nerves are frayed and don't work any more. I don't have anything for that. Only time heals things like that. Tell you what, why don't you make an appointment and come back next week, and I'll see if it's any better. In the meantime, rest it, don't overexert yourself, and if it gets too painful, take two paracetamol and wait for it to go away. _

It appears he can fix everyone except himself these days.

* * *

><p><em>Day 547<br>_It's the silence that gets to him the most. London outside has not changed, is steadfast, a lodestar to anchor John when nothing else does, and the city that smothers him and cradles him is unruly and dirty and unrepentant, with gossamer mist kissing the grey skin of the Thames even as the city strikes rusted scaffolding and ancient limestone buildings with blistering rays of sunshine or dashing droplets of rain. Yet Baker Street, these rooms, their rooms, has always existed within itself, its own universe running parallel to the main, 221b inhabited as a flat by those who have come and gone over the years, but lived in as a home only by the chosen two.

Now just one.

Inertia swamps the room like fog. Exacerbating shapes, sounds, warping them into eldritch constructs. The clock on the mantle is a hammer warring to be free from imprisoning walls, a swaying pendulum restless in the chest of the wooden box that holds it. _Tick, tock; _dredging up drowned relics from depths John should not dive down to.

_Tick: _you should have known that he'd do that, there would have been some sign, some clue, something you missed...

_Tock, _maybe if you'd checked, climbed down, he might have been still alive, if you'd just gone down after him, you wouldn't have fallen, the rock would have taken your weight...

_Tick; _stop this, stop thinking about then, stop thinking about him...

_Tock, _the growl of the water, and the night before how he sketched out constellations with his fingers – _Just because I'm not interested John, doesn't mean I can't appreciate them – _

_Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock, _

_Tick.. ._It's not fair.

That sticks with him. That thought, festering in the silence of a charnel house, the mausoleum, the empty rooms and empty house where a ghost man lives a half life, empty rooms devoid of identity, – no scrape of disjointed chords, no explosions or boredom-induced target practice – the nihility swelling, permeating everything.

_It's not fair. _

And with it, the sense of injustice, of anger grows and spreads, noxious roots taking hold in a barren environment, until one day, John wakes up and hates every reminder, every detail of this room, this house, the memories of him that are ceaseless and bold and bright and blaring as day contrasted to the grey scale of the present.

He storms into the kitchen, and just starts breaking things, with no reason, no agenda other than to want it gone, want it out, want to feel something, because something is better than nothing at all, and he wants to be angry at Sherlock, but he can't be because the detective is not here so he needs any outlet he can get.

_Why the fuck did you go without me, Sherlock?_

John grabs a test-tube, dashes it to the floor, glass chiming and spinning like shattered ice across the carpeted floor of the kitchen across to the wooden floorboard at the fringes. The splinters glint with dark light and he takes another and another, all following the first – _God, didn't you care, didn't you realise what this would do to me...?_ – and then he spins around, and with a sweep of his arm the relics of an old experiment on the table are flung from the table top; beakers and Erlenmeyer flasks, vials and pipettes and Petri dishes, – _Why is this house so empty, why aren't you here to fill the silences? – _all crack or break in the face of such ferocity. And in his head (or is it aloud?), he shouts, yanking test-tubes and plates and cups indifferently from cupboards and drawers, screaming _It's not fair, it's not fair that you died, that I lived, that it still hurts, it's not fair..._

And then, he stops, halfway through the planned trajectory of another victim of his rage, the cup in his hand falling limply to his side. The glass around his feet glints like sunlight on water, thundering foaming water caught in daytime with an inner lambent nature, dotted with fractured shards of ceramic, the former patterns on the plate still half recognisable.

There is a pained beat where no sound is heard, and maybe John murmurs something, a plea or a prayer, staring at this floor, hallowed ground he has desecrated, gleaming up at him like those stars a dark haired man pointed out to him one clear night in Meiringen.

Slowly, exhaling a sigh, a name mixed in with air, a cocktail of necessary things, John begins picking up what he has broken.

* * *

><p><em>Day 564<br>_He starts offering things, sacrifices, without knowing who he's offering them to. Maybe God and maybe just the sky, the overarching power who is in control, who would know what to do, would know how to turn back time, would know how to bring back the dead. Mostly, he just prepositions the man directly, although he doesn't know why.

_I'll never shout if you come back. Not even if you forget the milk, or if you put a head in the fridge, or holes in the walls. I will never complain about how little you eat or try and badger you to sleep more, I wont ever correct you or argue with you, and I'll always be there, I'll always be running right behind you, and oh god, if you just come back... just come back, I'll make it all better, whatever I do wrong, I'll fix, just come back, please, please. _

He keeps talking, while something freezes out the inside of his chest, keeps talking, bolstered by the tone of his own voice, even when it wavers, even when it cracks and his words become whispers, but it changes nothing in the end.

* * *

><p><em>Day 601<br>_She's tapping her foot, and tapping her pen on her third knuckle, and the clock is tapping the seconds, and John does not want to be here, and already is trying to read her writing upside-down.

"Tell me about Sherlock, John"

The psychologist's skirt is muted purple, and she keeps trying to pull it further down her legs. She smiles, and there is a bit of red lipstick smeared on white teeth. John clenches his hand around the burnished wood of the chair, his hands that are not special, are new to this particular furniture, but wont be the last poor bastard who ends up seated here like he's getting his heart weighed for judgement.

"What's there to tell?" His eyes are saying _How is this any of your concern?, _his hands, clenching tighter, anchoring himself to foreign wood, _stop asking me, stop talking to me, I don't know you, you don't know him, there's nothing I could say to you about him that you could possibly understand. _ "He's bloody dead isn't he?"

The meeting doesn't last much longer after that.

* * *

><p><em>Day 628<br>_On the third knock, a timid code of a brittle fist meeting wood, despairing hands on the other side of the door hoping someone is home, Greg answers, surprise adorning his face as he makes out who is standing there.

"I'm sorry" John starts, and it's obvious he's distressed in the tension coiling up in his shoulder, the tremor in his hands, the way he's fidgeting, not quite knowing how to hold himself, standing on the porch highlighted by the orange tint of the outside light. "God, I don't even know why I came and bothered you, it's just..."

"Get yourself inside, you dozy sod" Greg motions, moving to one side and holding the door open so John can enter with shuffling footsteps. He doesn't need to have his knowledge clarified by the doctor's jilted speech; he understands that John doesn't want to be alone tonight, in that house and those hollow rooms with the ghosts of dead men and old memories more restless and agitated.

John lowers himself down in Greg's living room, pale blue walls, white ceiling, a female touch evident in trinkets on the mantle, an old-fashioned gold carriage clock, candle holders with unlit candles purely for decoration, a childish touch proof of more than one child; there is a red firetruck lying on it's side, a colouring book still open on a half-completed crayon picture of an elephant. Lestrade's house is so filled with the presence of other people John feels for a second like he in his solitary misery is infringing on that.

"Do you – do you want a cuppa?" Lestrade stands over him, giving him a catalogue of acts that spell out his degrees of awkwardness; he shifts from foot to foot, rubs the hair at the back of his head with his palm, doesn't fix his gaze on any one place.

"I'm ok, Greg, I'm – " And then, he's not, he's so not, and it's blindingly obvious, and John puts his face in his hands, a harsh sound of distress escaping him. "God, Greg, it was my fault, it's my – my _fucking _fault he's dead..."

"Hey!" Greg abandons any offer of tea, sits himself next to John, the couch depressing under his weight "Hey! Now you stop that rubbish you hear? It wasn't your fault"

"But it was!" John responds, almost angry, but he's got nothing to be angry at, and he remembers that there are children, a family that is not his sleeping upstairs, and he lowers his voice, his tone losing none of it's desperation. In his head, he calls this survivors guilt, but he's been in no wars, not ones that have mattered this much "If I hadn't been so stupid... I should have _known _that it was a trap, and I let him go, Greg... I – I let him go up there alone, and now it's been over eighteen months, and it's not getting any easier, and it wont, there's no way it can, and..."

"Shh" Greg quiets him with a faint murmur, and there's a hand on John's shoulder and he doesn't know how it got there, only it drains all the words out of him, and his eyes are misty and he has to wipe them on his sleeve, and Greg's hand is still there – his support – and it is stable and unshakeable. The DI is speaking sentences, quietly, almost formed from expelled air, and it doesn't matter what exactly the semantics are, what matters is the intent of the words; _It's not your fault John, I know you think it is, but it's not, and he wouldn't blame you, and I'm sorry it still hurts and I can't do anything, but I'm always here if you need me. _

John takes that cup of tea after all, and it warms his cold hands. He smiles, grateful, like he needs an instruction manual to remember how all the muscles work, but it's good enough. Greg talks about other things, stupid little things like what's happening at the Yard, the gossip, the little bets they've got going on, and that's what he needs right now, as it washes over him like a wave lapping at the side's of him, eroding the rock slowly. He sleeps on Greg's sofa that night, willing to go home but unable to stand up long in the face of the DI's insistence, and despite the fact that come seven he's woken up by three children on the school run and an apologetic Greg Lestrade in his role as father and taxi-driver, it's the most restful night's sleep he's had in a long time.


	4. Year Three

_AN/ Thank you for everyone's kind reviews, and I'm sorry for making you all so miserable =] It'll get better, I promise. Till then, here is the next chapter._

* * *

><p><strong>Year 3<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Day 730<br>_It's after a bad day, one of many, and of course it's today, the maudlin anniversary, and John finds the only fitting way to end it is to get hideously drunk. After one bottle, there's no effect, two and a half, and he is finding the whole process pathetic, an excuse for moping in his own misery, slumped in front of the TV in his boxers and nightshirt, aiming the remote with a wavering purposefulness, channel-flicking. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

By four bottles of Heineken, depressing and popping the metal cap off a fifth, he's making his own entertainment, and the woman on the shopping channel has a tan that's making her glow orange, and god, that's funny, it's the funniest thing he's ever seen, and tears are cascading down his eyes, and the room sways and he feels slightly sick. By six, the smooth pale angles in his head are blurring, his leg isn't throbbing and the grey eyes and dark hair he thinks on are smeared with a grateful forgetfulness. He spills the seventh all over the floor, and he laughs at that, laughs and laughs, half hysterical, and his hands are shaking so badly he can barely trip the cap on an eighth.

He's starting to get a headache, a pounding, knocking behind his eyes, so stumbling upright, soaking the soles of his bare feet in the spilled beer on the floor, leaving sticky imprints as he wanders into the bathroom, taking two tries before he's able to open the cabinet, knocking over plasters and extra tubes of toothpaste and a cat's skull on the upper shelf, it's jaw hanging off, which he pushes past to reach the paracetamol.

He shakes some out into his palm, little red and white ovals that sit listlessly in his upright palm, and it reminds him of something, an advert or something someone once told him, and he giggles, the soothing buzz in his system coaxing him to continue, it's not as though he's been laughing at much these days. He wonders if this is why Harry spends so much time drunk being that it's this much fun...

He stops laughing immediately at that.

John focuses down into his palm, counts the pills he was going to down without a second thought, ignoring that the image blurs, sees the red and white blinking up at him, too many of them, and as a doctor, he knows exactly what damage they'll do. He drops them, like the white of them is scalding the flesh of his fingers and the red only marginally cooler but still burning, and going over to the sink, he splashes water on his face, cupping his hands and frantically bringing it to his skin so recklessly that the cold liquid drips off his chin, down his back, soaking his shirt at the front.

He exits the bathroom and grabs the rest of the twelve pack of beers, dumping them all in the bin out of the way of temptation, because he is _not _going to be like Harry, isn't going to drink himself to death in grief, isn't going to be so drunk he nearly kills himself accidentally with mixing drugs and alcohol. He mops up the warm beer that's become acquainted with the floorboards, sweeps up the littered fallen pills, and he slings every piece of evidence into a black bin liner, marches it down the stairs and out the back door to sling into the council provided hinge-top grey plastic bins in the yard. In the cool night air, he can see his breath take form like smoke.

When he gets back inside he flicks the TV off. He's done for tonight.

* * *

><p><em>Day 787<br>_..._Limbs askew, the detective's fallen asleep on the sofa again, draped over it like a second quilt, all his angles invading the soft spaces, digging into cushions, back curled over, hands tucked under his head, the curve of his elbow demonstrating something beautiful, the bones of his ankle something refined..._

..._Meaning is not a simple road; it's a forked path, meandering, pock-marked, patches splitting as they swirl, cracked like a hairline fracture. But meaning is also just the definition of something, a connection between two articles, and so when he says to John; I love you, it's the simplest thing they've ever understood, because it splinters out to encompass all the other things they've never had a language for; I never want you to go, I'd die for you, and the words change nothing, because they both already knew them..._

..._Sherlock's shaving, and it reminds John that the man is human, though he doesn't always appear like he belongs here, in this house, like he should rise above the dirty messy world with people who will never be as brilliant as him, incomparable. He's as though he came from the city, like the sky and stone formed an alliance in pale blue eyes like a gun-sight and dark curls, lacquered and fringed with so much intricacies, unrelenting, a puzzle box, a code, a cipher in another alphabet entirely of his making... _

..._They marry on a Friday. It's for a case, but even so, John fusses over his shirt, tucks and re-tucks it into the waistband of black trousers and still isn't satisfied, and whichever tie Sherlock tries on isn't good enough and in the end, he loses all patience and goes without, and neither of them even mention the idea of annulling this after the case is complete. In the end, there are three witnesses; Mrs Hudson, who nosily cries into her embroidered handkerchief; Mycroft, who despite himself is giving one of those smiles without teeth that for once don't want anything but to see his brother happy, and Lestrade, grey hair combed back, smart black suit that his wife shrugged over his shoulder that morning with a kiss_

_There are reasons for doing this aside from the case, small disparate pieces of reasoning that are slotted together to make a mosaic, and it's not to prove anything to anyone, it's not a statement of commitment, it's a cementing of that statement, a declaration – I will never want anything else other than you – and they've never followed many norms, but just today, just today they can be dull and predictable, except with Sherlock by his side they'll make it blazing..._

..._There are stars in Meiringen, and they pinch the top of the sky, scatter down like they're falling and they'll never stop, and Sherlock points them all out, John watching; Ursa Minor, Draco, Sirius, Cassiopeia. John stares out, the stars traversing all the way to the periphery of his vision and not stopping, and the sky leans in over them, and they're both so small, and it doesn't matter right then._

_John takes Sherlock's hand because it is already held out in offering, and draws him in closer, mouths his name, and the sky is a fortress that shelters them both, and the detective's reeling off other names – Andromeda, Cetus, – and John transmutes all the words he isn't saying through a dry kiss to his partner's temple, and it doesn't matter what they're here for, what they're chasing, not as long as Sherlock keeps speaking and John keeps holding him like they're two halves of the same inseparable creature..._

..._A waterfall, Reichenbach, and Sherlock is not there to tell him that it's alright, and even if somehow the message got through, John still wouldn't believe him..._

* * *

><p><em>Day 846<br>_Gregory Lestrade offers John a pint at the Black Hound, calling up around seven, voice over the line flecked in an innocent query that they both pretend isn't steeped in concern. John rarely ventures out of Baker Street, and John knows that Greg worries about him in his own way.

Yet tonight, John says something different than the common deferral; not tonight, Greg, I'm a bit tired, maybe next week? Tonight, he says _Yes. _Like he's trying out how the word sounds, how his mouth shapes it, the sound out of the silence skimming across skin. It's a wary response, half spur of the moment, thinking about Harry but knowing that this time he'll stay in control. He does a tester run first; _Yes, _sleek edges, clipped iron, merely a statement, then he follows it with another go, _Yeah, sure, what time?, _fully committing to it, his tone tiptoeing around the capacity for selfish joy. John can hear the smile threaded through Greg's voice, gladdened, perhaps hopeful, as they arrange to meet up.

It's one of the rare times John's ever seen outside the man outside of work; the detective inspector strolling up to the pub entrance with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, all the way down to the stitching, changed out of his work clothes into a homely ensemble of a polo shirt and light jacket. The absence of flashing police lights and a dead body for John to examine for the cause of death is noticeable, but John doesn't find himself missing it.

When the DI tells a bad joke (of the Englishman, Irishman and a Scotsman variety), John snorts into his lager, the alcohol making his humour increasingly free, social constraints more fuzzy, and the joke is just so bad, relying more on its atrocious puns than anything else, that he gives a good honest chuckle, one setting the other off so that in a moment they're both laughing hard, and John is catching his breath after a few moments, wiping tears from his eyes with his sleeve.

And this is better than being alone in front of the shopping channel and laughing at nothing, laughing with no-one, this bolsters something, the comfort of Greg just being here, wanting nothing from him, laughing at a crappy joke, this moment and the others akin to it are helping to fill the cracks at the foundations of him, stripping back the ivy that has conquered over stone, revealing the citadel beneath that John had lost sight of.

The crush of the pub, the two of them sitting right up at the bar, the circular stains where their drinks have slopped sticky against dark wood, a foil pack of peanuts sprinkled with chunks of salt, is loud, and it drowns out the truth, selectively narrows it down to just today, not then, and not before. Greg is the sort of rare man who finds something funny and includes everyone else in on the joke, and the two of them talk well into the early hours about the football season, current affairs, nothing important but John doesn't want the bigger things right now.

The conversation is like a hazy fug around John, seeping into him, pervading through barren pathways of his mind, lighting up something long left empty even if it's only a little spark. Later on, a song over the tinny speakers starts off an impromptu karaoke session, and after making their way through Billy Joel's Piano Man and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, they both begin gasping for breath, choking down more giggles, and don't ever manage to finish what is truly a unique rendition of what was supposed to be R.E.M.

And after the night has concluded with a goodnight bow, and John has beaten the DI three times out of five at pool and is making his way home, staggering even with his cane so much so that he needs to call a cab, the doctor realises that it's the first time in nearly two years that he hasn't thought of Sherlock once.

* * *

><p><em>Day 872<em>  
>"Tell me about Sherlock, John" The psychologist asks him, a different one this time, who doesn't wear a skirt but instead fawn cotton trousers that rustle in a faint breeze from the gap under the doors, soft make-up teased over her eyelids but a gentle smile like a shield against all the misery that bundles itself into her office every day, nine till five, Monday to Friday.<p>

The clock is still tapping with a fine red second hand, but she sits perfectly still, waiting, patient, giving him time, and John later will allow himself some time to be grateful for the way she's letting him gather himself.

He takes a shallow breath.

"He was a good man"

* * *

><p><em>Day 945<br>_This is an archaic method of dealing with the bad days, but it works.

"Bad tonight?" Greg asks him lightly, deliberately non-committal, as he seats John on the sofa in the living room just off to the right of the entrance, moving papers and children's toys out of the way, popping out for a second and returning soon after with a mug of tea which he presses into John's shaking hands. Tea, the medicine for all ills it seems, and the gesture is as quiet and unassuming as his tone, for Greg talks softly, the hour getting late. John will probably end up sleeping on the sofa tonight, and in the morning he'll have a crick in his neck, a stiff back that pulls on his shoulder, but that's in the future of tonight, and at the moment, John is just working on forgetting things.

_Blue cotton scarf, and the dreams, the falling, arms spreading out wide – Don't think about that._

_Dark hair that he threads his fingers through, and a smile with bloodless lips pressed together to hold in a moan, and what expression did he wear as he fell – Stop thinking about that, cross it out. _

_A name, John, said in a way no-one else has ever yet managed, 'John', like it means something more, something better than the short unimportant man it applies to, 'John' scripted in that black biro on a goodbye note – Stop._

"Yeah" John clenches his fingers around the mug – Arsenal crest displayed proudly in bold strokes of impassioned red – and tries to derive some warmth from the sensation, pushing thoughts out of his head and trying to distract himself.

"Thanks. For doing this for me." he blurts out finally, needing to say it, and the grey haired DI waves a hand as if to say _It doesn't matter, that's what mates are for, _but all the same, it doesn't make the sense of gratefulness John feels any less.

* * *

><p><em>Day 980<br>_John tries dating again, just the once. There's a pretty woman called Elaine who works in the bank, her eyes blue like a water's edge, brazen freckles clustering across each cheek, and a habit of sweeping hair off her face when she wants to listen to someone intently.

He really does try. She's good looking, charming and funny, and from the way she's dropping hints all the way through the desert course, interested in him too. But all these factors are not enough, and he swallows the food uncomfortably as it sticks in his throat, china clanging, and when he puts his fork down, his hands are empty of everything, which only makes the pale band of flesh around his finger more visible, breaking up the tan of his skin. And though he deserves to be happy with someone else, he can't manage it, not just yet, and he feels dirty, like he's stumbled into the wrong room, gone through a front door that doesn't take him anywhere he'd want to be, even though the only person he's cheating on is a dead man.

And it's stupid, but he looks at this woman, who smiles with her whole face instead of that sparking of light concentrated to her eyes, with her soft hands not calloused by chemicals or scars, and knows that nothing she could offer him could ever be enough; because he's selfish, picky, choosy, and although his head tells him to get a grip, his heart has an elevated place in the pecking order of things.

He walks her home, and her hair colour is muted by lamplight and everything else is dark, corners stretch out with claws, flushed with shadows – there are no monsters here, only the ones in his head – and he kisses her cheek, and she invites him upstairs, and he says no – nicely, but he's still turning her down – and she's not happy with that, he can see it in the downturn of her mouth, the diminished smile like someone's put a cover over a candle flame, but of course she wouldn't be, but there isn't any way he could put it that would make this ending any nicer.

He puts his ring on as soon as he gets back that night and it's an acknowledgement of something, but whether it's failure or loyalty, he doesn't know, buffering and cleaning it first so that glimmers like a golden afternoon, mirrors back his own apology, and he slips it back on like he never removed it, a kind of normalcy restored.

* * *

><p><em>Day 1000<br>_He begins to move on, perhaps because he has to, perhaps because it's just time or maybe because it's another layer of coping mechanisms. This is a new paragraph, but he's still on the same page as before. He hasn't turned over, to find out how the tale goes; _and then what happens to him? _

John types up some of the older cases that never made the original blog; losing himself and finding the details in paper creases of mortuary reports and victim photographs that Sherlock had never gotten around to throwing away. He polishes his words, his descriptions so they glow. It's oddly easier to write about the man who was the world's only consulting detective, because in the transferral from memory to the word document, Sherlock becomes propped up by prose grown rosy in the telling, smoothed over, an archetype for justice. Of course John doesn't leave out all the man's insufferable qualities, but he entwines them into the background of a much grander person, doesn't forgive them but makes them forgiveable. He doesn't post them however. Not yet.

He becomes such a staple at the Lestrade household that the children (and John learns all their names and birthdays religiously, and is on call for piggyback duty whenever they are demanded from him) progress to calling him Uncle John, which Greg encourages, with a questioning gaze at John, asking if that's ok, John nodding _yes. _Sometimes, when Greg's got a hard case on the go, small study littered with papers, John helps him brainstorm, offering an extra medical angle, some of Sherlock's methods retained in his head that he dredges up and attempts to apply. It's not exactly the same, like another piece of jigsaw in the gap that's from a different box, but sometimes it helps.

The real world comes hanging on the doorbell more often than not, and it's not exciting, but he's not bored because he doesn't dare allow himself to be, curls himself in the sunken dip of the armchair after work, reads medical journals that had gathered dust, other books that had another man's name scrawled in startlingly delicate pencil lines on the inside; classics, words in other tongues, anything to distract himself.

For the first time since he was a teenager, he clips open the dulled silver clasps of a battered black box with peeling stickers of old bands that he used to like, reverently pulls out each piece of the clarinet from where they've nestled in red plush surroundings. With a cloth he rubs concentric circles to buff up the ligature and keys, fitting them all together, slotting in the reed. He can't remember much except a couple of scales, his finger work clumsy and sluggish, but he practices every night, even going as far as buying a book of tunes, and he improves with time; the old rhythms returning.

It's not a perfect existence, but it's getting better, even just slowly.

* * *

><p><em>Day 1095<br>_The clock ticks over to the last day, the detective dead exactly three years, and there is a knock on the door, on the day where everyone knows John wont take visitors. And they must have a key because Mrs Hudson hasn't let them in, the woman away at her sister's in Cornwall. They loiter on the top landing, because the floorboards croak and squeak.

He thinks about ignoring it. They knocks again, more insistent, like the caller is standing outside in the freezing cold and sleet, and trying to get away and out of the foul weather. He sighs too hard, and his head is an agency of conflictions, _not today, any other day, but not today, _even as he drags his body upright, and shouts out "Just a minute!", shuffling over slowly with heavy steps. There is a patch of muggy sunlight braiding through the gap in the curtains that takes a slice out of the floor as he pulls open the door.

Sherlock Holmes is standing there.


	5. Epilogue

_AN/ Thank you very much to everyone who has reviewed or favourited. I'm eternally grateful. For all you people, here's the last chapter._

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue<strong>

* * *

><p>He's not the same man John left halfway up a path in Switzerland. Three years of tiredness weigh heavy in his eyes, his skin paler than the usual alabaster, his clothes seeming to shrink his form, not standing up straight, instead, crouching as though he's been standing in torrential rain and the material around him is dragging him down. His hair is shorter, cropped to a military style and left to lengthen over time into something choppy and cut by hand, a smear of curled darkness, and his usually smooth shaved skin has been untended, encouraging the emergence of a dark stubble that follows the contours of his face. John takes these momentary notes, the commentary of differences, folds them over to store somewhere in his heart.<p>

"John" Sherlock says, like it's the first thing he's said in a long time, vowels scraping, tone ragged. The tone isn't the same as it was before; it's more despairing, bone-tired and relieved.

John staggers. The only thing he can do. Breathing normally has up and gone, along with the stability in his legs, and before he buckles he grabs hold of the door frame, leans against it, the only thing bracing him the cane in his hand acting as substitute for his legs. He just stares. His brain hasn't got to any other stage. He stares, his hands making claws around the head of his cane and around the wooden reinforcement of the door frame, but his palms are strangely still, not shaking; taking in the sharper planes of his partner's face, the bones of him forming something as solid as rock, but a glance at his expression telling another story; apprehension_, _perhaps_ fear. _

And John can't understand these things right now, these concepts that he can't compute or deal with, so he takes in the obvious things, sticks with them, they're comfortable, they're safe; Sherlock's coat is battered, the bottom splattered with flecks of dirt, and it's not sodden and drenched in foaming water like John always imagined it was; there's a loose thread at the sleeve, and that's new, and the haunted look in his eyes, that's new too, and him being alive, that's definitely a big change.

Sherlock's breathing too hard, air forced through thin lips, and John's barely breathing at all. They are both at a stalemate here, time stinging around them.

So John punches him, hard, and it doesn't make sense, the blind violence but then again, it could be the only thing that makes sense in this scenario, because at least there's something predictable in this response, something that follows the laws set down for the action; Sherlock stumbles back a step, hand up to his face, touching the tender spot of a split lip.

"_How could you_?" John hisses out, and it's brittle, like a pencil pressed too hard against a blank piece of paper until the lead snaps and skitters off under the table onto the floor.

"John, let me – " Sherlock has taken his hand away, blood smudging, breaking up the white of his fingers, is beseeching to him with those lonely eyes, but John cuts him off.

"No, I want you to answer me" he growls, and he straightens, eyes boring deadly into Sherlock – the dead man standing alive and washed-out before him "I want you to tell me _exactly _what was going through that fucking great brain of yours when you decided it was a brilliant idea to pretend you were _dead_"

He bites out the words as though every one has done him an injustice, crushes them through his teeth like he's spitting them out from a gun muzzle, barrel flaring, gunpowder an after-taste in the air. There's something nuzzling into the hollows of his chest, a dissonance to the status quo, and it's rampant, lingering on one over-riding emotion. Betrayal.

John is cocooned, bundled in constrictive layers upon layers of emotion, relief and blinding affection meshed in with anger and violence, and it's too much for just one man, so he goes with the spark that blares the loudest, pushing the rest to the back.

He feels betrayed. Because John can see the whole web from the centre outwards, a spiralling construction, a spider's creation of deception and understands now, sees the things hidden under the surface of this fallacy; the lack of a body, the rushed, smoothed memorial service. This was engineered deliberately, with consideration to logistics and method,and Mycroft's involved somewhere and John's going to lay into him when he gets the chance, and oh now, nowit _hurts, _the gaps in him aren't empty, they're full of screaming aching cells. It's like someone has reached down his throat all the way to his chest, and wrenched and tugged at the walls he built around his heart to keep the grief in, only when the emotion's let out, it warps, tightens at the corners, converts to something else, spitting, sizzling anger on the way out.

Sherlock lied to him.

_Sherlock. _

"I want you to tell me" John repeats.

"It was necessary" Sherlock's gaze flickers down for a second, but rises back up, roaming over the man he sees before him, craving the sight. Like a starving man his gaze is hungry, wanting to touch, ravenous gaze wanting to recall, remember, relive sensations he has been deprived of just the same as John.

"Necessary?" That one word is a whisper, shaking and quivering in fury, torn out from him. John straightens, not even wincing at the ache in his leg, the hand that had clung to the door frame flexing before tucking into his palm, skin over his knuckles whitening, the tendons and bones almost visible underneath. He focuses on Sherlock, pushing back any immediate desires he might have harboured to rush right over to his partner and hold him in both hands, kiss the air out of his lungs, hit him again then press his lips against the bruises to wipe the damage away. Sherlock betrayed him, lied to him, and that _hurts, _overpowers any impulse he cradles within himself "_Necessary_?"

"Moran needed to believe I was no longer a threat" Sherlock doesn't shy away from his gaze for the moment, knowing that this is a penance he has to pay, a forgiveness he needs to work for. "That gave me the leeway required in order to take down the rest of Moriarty's empire"

"Because, of course, it was always about fucking _Moriarty_" John spits, and he doesn't know if it's possible to hate a dead man even more, but he does, he'd dig up that Irish bastard's grave or dance on it or spit on it; he captured Sherlock's attention in a way that John never could, and the doctor _hates _him for it. "Did you ever think about me, even once?"

Sherlock's expression goes dark, pained, and it stands out from the pale sheen of his skin "Of course I did."

"And where did I fit into this plan?" John flares up "Huh? Why couldn't you have told me?"

Sherlock's eyes cast down for the first time, at the floor, at his feet, unable to meet John's "I – I couldn't"

"I couldn't keep your precious secret, is that it?"

"I wanted to keep you safe!" Sherlock snaps at John's biting tone, a little bit of the old arrogance coming back, the self-assured sense of being the one in the right, the one who knows best, and that reaction is better than the submissive apologetic missives because it selfishly gives John for fuel for his anger, makes it easier to be furious at Sherlock, allows his rage a larger scope."I didn't want you hurt because of me"

"Well, you failed there, didn't you?" His voice is gradually getting louder, the fury like a compulsion and he's too angry for tears, so just screaming will have to do. And he's not sure whether he's shouting or not, but he's not holding back, not any more, and at the pinnacle of this moment his anger, and hatred – yes, hatred; because it's possible to hate someone and love every inch of them, and John's demonstrating that right now – are blooming within him, his head giddy, blood thrumming.

He feels so alive, burning and incensed, and it would be wonderful if this didn't hurt so much. He wonders if he strikes Sherlock again across soft skin whether it'll leave a mark, a repentance. "You stupid... stupid... Did you not bloody think? I _was _hurt Sherlock! I've spent three years being hurt, and that was all your doing, you sanctimonious bastard, because you made me think you were dead"

There is nothing eloquent in this moment, and in the ruthless afternoon light illuminating a skeletal slender man who piece by piece has snapped the bones of John's heart under the heels of his palms while trying to save him and restart his heart.

"You think it wasn't hard for me too?" Sherlock snarls back, angles twisted in an emotion made of the mottled shades of anger and frustration and which transcends them both "You think that I didn't regret what I did, that every day I didn't think of calling you up and telling you the truth. Every day, I held that phone in my hand and wanted to call so I could just hear your voice again..."

"But you didn't call, did you?" John's barely standing anymore, his support threatening to give way, and it's the same for every part of him, the stones of his foundations cracking in the right places to hurt him again.

"I know you're angry John, you've every right to be, but just..."

"You're bloody right I'm angry! I'm goddamn furious!" John breathes out again, like there's not enough air, like it's all evaporated out of his pores from the heat of an inner furnace, and this is what will break him if he pushes hard enough "You lied to me..." His tone is a twisted up sliver of metal that's folded to make a dagger, and it's accusatory and selfish, because John isn't thinking about Sherlock at all, at how exhausted he is, how shear willpower is seeming to hold his strings upright; he's thinking about the ashen nights, a resistance in every motion, holding the world back with hands outstretched like a mixed-up invitation, a niche in his carved out chest where the only beat was the rhythm of a waterfall and every one of these is evidence in Sherlock's trial.

"I was trying to keep you safe..."

"I thought you were _dead, _Sherlock!" John bellows, cutting him off again, and his hands are shaking again, not from the leftover trembling but from blistering, near-blinding fury, tremors skidding over the taut flesh of his skin "For three years!"

He stops, and something inside of him that has weathered too much, is close to crumbling, slumps, and he closes his eyes, blinking back tears that are hedged in the edges of his eyes, voice cut down to barely even a murmur.

"Three years" he repeats, and Sherlock motions to move forward, put his hand out, touch John's arm, before he decides against it. "Just one message. To let me know you were alive. Was that too much to ask? God, I would have waited for you, I would waited... however long it would have taken, I would have been here." John shakes his head, heat draining from his words, leaving them desolate "You had no right, Sherlock, to make that sort of decision without me. Absolutely no right"

"I know" The honesty, the admittance of fault is not anything John had expected, surprising him "And... I'm... I'm so, so, sorry. God, if I could have done this differently I would have."

_'Believe me when I say that if there had been any way other than this, I would have taken it without thought,' _the letter in his pocket had said, and the words now morph, take on new syntax, new meaning. '_ I know you might be angry at me, and you are right to be. And although this is necessary, I am well-aware of the pain it will cause others, especially you. I am so sorry John.'_

"John." Sherlock says, and John looks at his partner, and regardless of how much anger is still in him, he sees the cracks of strain appearing, as though Sherlock's about to collapse, his limbs unable to sustain the weight of him anymore in the face of being home; and there's some sort of sick victory in the way a limping man is able to stay standing but a supposedly strong man isn't, but John can't stomach that thought.

"Get inside" he murmurs, the hatred smudged, dissipating to softer tones, and it's not forgiveness, not yet, but at least it's a start.

* * *

><p>John makes a cup of tea, because it's a default setting to deal with all disaster. Death, bombs and madmen, even simply a bad day at the surgery; all with a response unit of tea bags and hot water from a screaming kettle, and milk and copious spoonful's of sugar, and he's following the actions he recalls in his memory because he doesn't have to reach in far to find them, doesn't have to think too hard, think too long. He takes out two cups for the first time in a long time, and his calloused hands splash milk into a strong brew, remember the recipe automatically.<p>

When he comes back into the living room, Sherlock's slumped on the sofa, his eyes closed, his breathing feather-light indicative of sleep, and John deposits the cups on the coffee table. The anger is smothered, and so now he'll pick up the pieces like he always does, whether it's shattered glass like stars on the floor or the slumped exhausted man passed out on the sofa.

Leaning down, he tugs off worn shoes and places them neatly to the side, toes pressed against the edge of the furniture. Manoeuvring the man's arms, he peels the coat from limp heavy limbs, the man lying on his back and curling up slightly in the sluggish motions of sleep, and John folds the garment over his arm before with a degree of trepidation, like there are parts of him still waiting to re-emerge from shock, he hangs up the coat next to his own. The scarf is absent, but the basics are there at least.

He finds a coarse tartan blanket in the airing cupboard, and drapes it over Sherlock with something approaching tenderness, gently tucks it in around the sides. Watches him for a moment like he's surveying a myth, standing over him, daring the world to come back and take him, because John wont let them do it again.

He cards his fingers through too-short curls. He needed to be sure.

* * *

><p>If this was a film, or a TV show, if their lives were ones played out on a screen, they would have embraced in a heartbeat under a blood red sunset with roses and half-drunk glasses of wine, kissed like they were burning something out of themselves. John would have peppered the side of Sherlock's face like he was trying to devour him, dashing, crushing his body against him like it'd stop time and turn it backwards, clenching a hand in that choppy hair, graceless and raw, tugging at the roots and grounding them both, and Sherlock would find that corner of his mouth that curls in a frowning descent to force his lips against like he was looking to unlock something. There would be marks of vicious ownership dappled purple along the slender column of his throat, and neither would know whose limbs were whose in the tussle, fighting for skin at the curve of the lower back, and skin strained tight across the stomach, becoming fluent in the topography of flesh. And it would be perfect and forgive all crimes and kiss away all blemishes, and they'd both get a happy ever after, and isn't that what everyone wants?<p>

But John Watson is not a character from a movie. He is human, a human man with aches and scars and the varied capacity for love and anger in equal measure, and he needs time above all else.

* * *

><p>He goes out to buy milk in the morning, but really it's an excuse to stretch his legs, think. He's been cut away from the city too long, so he allows it's rush to sweep through him, fill him with it's noise till it reaches the other side of his body. His feet take him away and back in a loop to the living room where a vision of memory and flesh turned real is pacing the floor, a frantic worry on his face that evaporates, scatters away into a visible relief taking root when he sees John limp back up the stairs.<p>

"I thought you'd left" Sherlock mumbles, that look in his eyes, the one that wants to touch, to take, to hold again. John simply puts the bags down on the floor, and gives a stretched smile that doesn't give away that he had held the same fears.

"Don't be silly", is all he responds, but that sets Sherlock in some form of ease, not complete, for he loiters, lingers standing as John puts the milk away.

"Lestrade came round" he says finally.

"Oh?" John clamps the fridge door closed, extinguishing the light inside "How did he take your resurrection?"

Sherlock doesn't flinch at the cavalier indifference John's trying to pass off, but he tenses his shoulders as though he'd like to.

"Swore. Loudly. Then he shouted a lot. Threatened to punch me before I told him you got there already" Sherlock fingers absent-mindedly the scabbed over cut marring the pink of his lips, and John feels little regret for his actions.

"He say anything else?"

"He said you were a bloody idiot not to divorce me and leave on the spot" He shuffles his bare feet, and doesn't say any more, but his silence is asking something of John, something too big, something they both need clarification on. _Are you going to leave me?, _his silence asks, and he ruffles the bristles at the back of his neck and pretends that he hasn't hinged everything on John's answer.

John concentrates on placing things away in the cupboards, but after a moment, turns and meets Sherlock's eyes, smiles fleetingly.

"Good thing I'm an idiot then"

He adds nothing else, but something slots into place here, the foundations laid for a capacity to rebuild a city out of the tattered old skeletons of former citadels. Sherlock's mouth remembers what a smile feels like, and when John presses a cup of tea into his hand, there's a spark in haunted eyes that lights up like a candle flare.

* * *

><p>Sherlock sleeps on the sofa at night. In the day, they skirt around each other with small talk and something meaningful lurking back, shying from the light; John fussing about Sherlock's weight, Sherlock lightly commenting that John's looking just as trim these days, even though the word is gaunt and they both know it; two skeletal frames with withered fragile hearts at the centre, starved of affection and closeness for too long. Endless cups of tea are made, above half going cold in their mugs. Some arguments spark up, grievances and apologies and longing mixed into a mess of sound so they can't pick out what means what.<p>

Everything is surface deep, lingering away from the depths of what they both want, but John is not yet ready, needs time, and he's had three years of time, of waiting, but adaptation is a process, not instantaneous. So Sherlock does what he's been doing for the past thousand odd days, what he's become well practised in. He waits, and John's grateful for that.

* * *

><p>On the third night John's nightmares are bad. Worse than usual, harsh sweeping things that dig talons into his consciousness; <em>Sherlock leaning backwards, smiling like a cord, faltering as he falls, down, down, the sky and the water and is there a difference anymore, both the colour of ash, colour of gravestones, and there is screaming, shouting his name, and it is animalistic, feral from the shear panic of it, and it takes John a moment to realise that it's coming from him.<em>

John's eyes snap open, the same ritual as always, the panted fractured breathing, sweat sheeting sticky on his skin under his t-shirt, his eyes flicking around an empty room. Except this time, there is someone there in the near-dark of early morning, a ghost standing over him, features etched with concern.

John sits up, propping himself up to meet Sherlock's unflinching gaze.

"Bad?" The baritone is lower in the quiet, and John nods, gathering his thoughts and dusting them free of the landscape of rocks and spray they inhabited before speaking, throat hoarse. He wonders whether he's been shouting in his sleep, and decides that he'd rather not know.

"Yeah"

"What was it?" Gimlet eyes bore into him, wanting to know, perhaps wanting to make things better; _let me in, _those eyes ask of him, _let me in and I'll make this right._ His words reach out with gnarled crooked fingers, rugged but with all the best intentions, and John can't deny Sherlock, not of anything.

"You" John clears his throat, threading a hand through his hair, sweat still beading, trailing a line down his neck to disperse in the hollow of his throat "You, falling" He doesn't elaborate.

"You have them often?"

"Used to be nearly every night"

"And now?" There is something broken in the light of his partner's gaze, unremittingly honest like light bleeding through a locked door that today has been left open; a self-hatred, an internal disgust that he is the reason, he is the dream that sculpts the shadowy flesh under John's eyes, that his name is the one John wakes up with on his tongue.

John pauses. "Still often." he admits to the man wrapped in shadow before him, the vulnerable line of his shoulders and the curve of his neck the only parts of him touched by the outside moonlight.

Sherlock halts at that, not knowing where else he can go with this, like the hour is too early and he is too cautious to continue. He half turns to retreat back to the sofa, before John speaks again, tired and lonely and unforgivably human, his words tentative, testing the waters.

"Come to bed, Sherlock?"

It's asking something, something too big again, but it's offering as well, give and take, the fragility of humanity of wanting things they have and things they don't, and John's wanted Sherlock for three years and even the three days trailing after them without reaching out, things always in his way; death or anger, only now it's and the sky is dark outside, and there are no monsters that are not claimed by moonlight, and all those things in the way are unimportant.

Sherlock pulls up the duvet to slide in next to John, pressing up against the back of him in an effort to make the minutes stop, just for tonight, and the touch is solid, reassuring. And later they'll progress to remapping and marking out sensations that have been persevered only in memory, there'll be the clash of teeth, concentrating years into one reunion, an all encompassing clarity even as they're breathless.

But for now, Sherlock curls long arms around John, bringing him in closer, and John's fingers trail up before intertwining into the gaps in Sherlock's hand that his fingers were made to fit, and both touches are a little desperate for contact, relaxing when permission is given. There is the soft sigh of air against the nape of John's neck and in the dark, neither of them says a word, not _I missed you, _not _I love you, _because it's not necessary, because they both already know.

They can start again tomorrow.


End file.
